[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 85 (Thursday, June 29, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6109-S6110]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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               HOW NOT TO SQUANDER OUR SUPERPOWER STATUS

 Mr. BIDEN. I rise today to comment briefly on an extremely 
thought-provoking opinion piece by Josef Joffe in the June 20th edition 
of the New York Times. The article was entitled ``A Warning from Putin 
and Schroeder.'' It describes how the current global predominance of 
the United States is being countered by constellations of countries, 
which include allies and less-friendly powers alike, and how American 
behavior is aiding and abetting this development.
  Mr. Joffe is the co-editor of the prestigious German weekly Die Zeit. 
He received his university education in the United States and is well 
known and respected in American foreign policy

[[Page S6110]]

circles. In short, his thoughts are advice from a friend, not hostile 
criticism from an embittered or jealous antagonist.
  The take-off point of the article, from which its headline is 
derived, was the recent summit meeting in Berlin between German 
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Russian President Vladimir Putin 
during which Putin employed the classic Muscovite tactic of wooing 
Europe's key country in an effort to have it join Russia as a 
counterweight to us.
  Fair enough, Joffe says. Whenever the international system has been 
dominated by one power, a natural movement to restore the balance has 
arisen. With regard to the United States, this is nothing new--the 
Chinese, as well as the Russians, have been decrying a ``unipolar 
world'' and ``hegemonism'' for years.
  But Germany--the country the United States practically reinvented 
from the ashes of World War II, ushered back into the civilized family 
of nations, and then stood out as the only champion of re-unification 
only a decade ago? No matter how gushy a host he wished to be, how 
could the Chancellor of this Germany suddenly be calling for a 
``strategic partnership'' with Russia?
  One answer, according to Joffe, is the obvious and passionate 
hostility to the U.S. national missile defense project, known popularly 
as NMD, which the Russians and our German allies--for that matter, all 
of our European allies--share.
  A second reason can be traced to the obvious shock at the 
overwhelming American military superiority shown in last year's 
Yugoslav air campaign. The manifest European military impotence 
impelled the European Union to launch its own security and defense 
policy, which NATO is now struggling to integrate into the alliance.
  To some extent, then, the very fact of our current power--military, 
economic, and cultural--makes attempts at creating a countervailing 
force nearly inevitable.
  But there is more. It is not only the policy that spawned NMD that 
irritates our European allies. What also irks them is the cavalier way 
in which we neglected to consult with them in our rush to formulate 
that policy. As Joffe trenchantly puts it, ``America is so far ahead of 
the crowd that it has forgotten to look back.''
  In this, the second half of his explanation, I fear that Joffe is on 
to something: a new kind of American hubris. Again, his use of English 
is enviable. He describes the behavior of Congress these days as 
``obliviousness with a dollop of yahooism'' (I assume he isn't talking 
about the search engine).
  Mr. President, no one loves and respects this body more than I do. I 
believe that the American people is exceedingly well served by the one 
hundred Senators, all of whom are intelligent and hard-working.
  Nevertheless, I note with dismay an increasing tendency in this 
chamber--I will leave judgments of the House of Representatives to 
others--for Members to advocate aspects of foreign policy with a 
conscious disregard, occasionally even disdain, for the opinions of our 
allies and the impact our policies have on them.
  This kind of unilateralism was exhibited in the floor debate last 
fall on ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by one of my 
colleagues who, in responding to an article jointly authored by British 
Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, and German 
Chancellor Schroeder, declared: ``I don't care about our allies. I care 
about our enemies.''
  No one, Mr. President, is advocating abandoning or compromising the 
national interest of the United States simply because our allies oppose 
this or that aspect of our foreign and security policy.
  But power--in the current context, our unparalleled power--must be 
accompanied by a sense of responsibility.
  Mr. Joffe alludes to this power-and-responsibility duality in 
recalling the golden age of bipartisan American foreign policy in the 
years immediately following the Second World War, when Republican 
Senator Arthur Vandenberg and Democratic President Harry S. Truman 
collaborated on halting the spread of communism and on helping create 
the international institutions that remain the cornerstones of our 
world more than half a century later. As he puts it ``responsibility 
must defy short-term self-interest or the domestic fixation of the 
day.''
  Mr. President, one does not have to agree with all of Joffe's 
arguments to admit that his assertions at least merit our serious 
consideration. For if we do not begin to realize that even the United 
States of America needs to factor in the opinions of its friends when 
formulating foreign policy, it may not have many friends to worry about 
in the future.
  And if that development occurs, we will almost certainly no longer 
retain the sole superpower status that we now enjoy.

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